


L'Épître de la Dame

by mac_am



Series: Untold tales of Faerghus [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, Femininity, Forced Marriage, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:52:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28712325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mac_am/pseuds/mac_am
Summary: A stack of letters on the table, a flickering candle raining light on the storming night outside.A quill on her desk before her, Lúin's crimson glow behind.Ingrid looks at the mirror and decides to take a stand.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Ingrid Brandl Galatea & Sylvain Jose Gautier, Dorothea Arnault & Ingrid Brandl Galatea
Series: Untold tales of Faerghus [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2104773
Kudos: 1





	L'Épître de la Dame

The flickering flame casts a golden shine onto Ingrid’s bound hair.

Her moss green eyes look at her reflection on the glass, purple-bruised eyelids heavy and bringing out the hazel ring framing her irises underneath full lashes. She supposes she’s pretty enough, if one doesn’t look closer. She does though, and she sees the chapped thinness of her lips. The slight, gaunt hollowness of her cheeks that she shares with all the people of Galatea, hastily filled with plentiful servings at the monastery —then promptly carved out by war again. Her skin is ghostly and pasty, not unlike the candle dripping ivory wax onto a pile of unopened letters.

The letters don’t need to be unsealed for Ingrid to know their content. To know the intention of the senders.

A part of her thinks it is naught but folly. The Empire is tearing down their walls, cutting down their soldiers, and here is her father – here are these _strangers –_ bartering her around like a bargaining chip, when she could be out there, fighting.

The Crest of Daphnel hums under her skin at her aggravation.

 _And yet,_ she muses, looking out at her barren lands, _there is reason to this madness._

Her people are hungry, more so now that the Empire’s razed what little merchant routes reached Galatea, and the Alliance is closed off, busy dealing with inner disagreements and civil unrest. Count Galatea needs money and his surviving daughter’s Crest seems to rack up a pretty penny.

It makes Ingrid sick. But looking at the stack of unread letters, she is reminded of how her siblings fell prey to famine and frost, one after the other. The plague never reached Galatea. There were never enough people to infect.

She thinks that she should accept the offers —that she must, if only to guarantee that the men and women under her father’s care will be fed enough to survive another winter. 

_Nevermind the fact they'll fall to a western sword soon enough._

But then her gaze falls on the chivalry tales sitting next to the letters. The silver script curling on the spine reads _Loog and the Maiden of the Wind._ She stares at it, tuning out the howling wind outside as it bleeds into the sound of steel against steel, swords clashing, blinded by the hail storming around them.

She sees Sylvain and Felix – the boy that was always her little brother in all but blood, and who she had already lost once – fighting against Imperial soldiers in the cold borders of Fraldarius while they watch them lay siege upon Fhirdiad at Cornelia’s behest. She remembers the rumors of a bloodthirsty beast brutalizing Imperial troops and thinks of Dimitri, alone in the unforgivable Faerghun wilderness – _or worse, dead,_ she doesn’t dare add – haunting the forests of the Kingdom like a wounded animal.

Her family needs her.

Ingrid turns towards the mirror once more. She frees her hair from her usual plaited braid. It falls down her back in rivulets of wheat-colored strands, the same as the crops that blanket the Tailtean Plains in the summer, and once again she wonders why they can’t grow on Galatea soil too.

She catches a blond lock between her fingers. It’s long, like a desirable young bride’s should be. 

Dorothea’s was long too, cascading down her mole-covered back in waves of molten chocolate when she smiled at Ingrid with glinting minty eyes and strawberry lips, long nails raking her then-soft cheeks after they returned from Ailell.

Mercedes’ as well, bound with a pretty bow as it draped over her mantle-covered shoulder.

Ingrid sighs before grabbing the unused letter opener on her bedside table, bringing it to the hair she has bunched up carelessly in her fist.

She looks at her reflection once more, red-rimmed eyes skimming over her muscled, sinewy arms, the coarse skin of her fingers, her rachitic chest. She glances back at her long hair as it shines red from Lúin’s gentle glow behind her.

_Do you think me any less of a man to ride a pegasus, Ingrid? Would you say Kyphon was any less of a knight for it?_

She cuts through.

* * *

  
  


“My Lord! A missive from House Galatea.”

“Is that so? Let us see, then.”

  
  


_“To the attention of My Lord Godfather,_

_Godfather, you will be proud to see that I have committed your words to heart, as I always do. I wish to thank you for your council, and for your unyielding support. I would trust no other with my deepest fears and worries._

_That is why I ask that you look after Galatea once I leave for the front lines._

_As I have trouble putting my words down on paper, I am sending you a gift attached to this letter that will answer any questions you may have._

_Please, excuse me for the short notice. Unfortunately, war doesn’t wait for anyone. And neither do I._

_With love,_

_Your Goddaughter Ingrid”_

  
  


In the envelope there is a lock of blond hair, held together by a simple green string.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a tidbit of an AU I've been working on for a bit now. I've got the whole plot planned but I don't feel capable enough of writing it myself, so in the meantime I'll write short drabbles/one-shots set in it. Although, you probably wouldn't notice it's an AU if I didn't tell you (for now).


End file.
